Paintworks Event Space Wedding

Firstly, I’d like to thank Vicky for writing this entire blog post for me, and secondly for the help of Emil Boczek who worked alongside me to capture these amazing moments for Mr & Mrs Forder.

Why did you choose The Paintworks Event Space?

It was very important to me to get married in my home town, as we currently live in Didcot. I knew I wanted a very different sort of wedding to weddings I’ve attended in the past (parish church and stately home, or marquee). With the loss of both my parents and Tom’s mum only a few years ago, we felt we wanted a relaxed and informal wedding where their absence would not be startlingly obvious, and the space the Paintworks offered us matched that. I really loved the big, blank open area of the Paintworks as well as all the industrial features of the concrete floor, exposed girders and metal – very different to other weddings we’ve been to (think hay bales and bunting). The outdoor spaces at the Paintworks were perfect for the sort of wedding we wanted, which allowed our guests to mingle and relax without missing too much of anything going on inside. The outdoor spaces also offered great potential photo opportunities.

The Dress

My dress was from a little independent boutique shop called The Bridal Room in Westbury-On-Trym in Bristol. The shop has been there for as long as I can remember. I happened to be in Bristol one weekend and was running some errands and just popped in on the off chance. At this point, I was getting a bit stressed about finding a wedding dress. I only tried on two dresses in the shop and knew the second dress was the one. It was everything I didn’t know I wanted (if that makes sense?!) I knew exactly what I didn’t want in a wedding dress, but didn’t know what I did want until I found it! I went back the following week with my cousin Debs for a second opinion, and bought it! The dress was by Eliza Jane Howell and was an art deco style beaded column dress with scalloped little sleeves. I changed into a second dress for the evening as I wanted to be able to dance all night without worrying about ruining my dress! The bridesmaid’s dresses were from the high street and they wore different dresses in the same colour palette. I really like mix and match bridesmaid outfits, which worked perfectly for my sister and cousin.

Hair & Makeup

I had two very lovely ladies come and make us up for the day. Becky Mills (@beckymhair) was our hairdresser, she was recommended to me by a friend who works at the same hair salon (Bloggs). I met with her twice before the big day to play around with hairstyles. Louise Espley (@louiseespleymakeup) was our make up artist, she’s my sister’s friend. Both ladies were absolute stars and very accommodating and patient with me! I hope I wasn’t too much of a bridezilla but when you are normally used to a ponytail and slick of mascara it can be completely overwhelming to be done up to the nines! They both did a wonderful job and I felt like the best version of me on the big day.

The Band

Our band was The Blue Lion Band. They were absolutely brilliant and kept the dance floor in full swing all night long – I danced so much I had blisters on my feet! Tom’s first duty as my husband was to go find some plasters and bandages for my poor feet! So worth it though! Our guests are still talking about how great the band were. We gave them free reign for the music and they definitely did not disappoint!

The Cake

I made my own wedding cake. I have made numerous wedding cakes over the years and always knew I would make my own. My mum made her wedding cake and always told me the story of how the night before her own wedding she was still making the sugar roses, whilst her mum was panicking it would never be finished! Having experienced the stress and panic of transporting wedding cakes across the country I decided to make thing easier on myself for my own wedding, so the 2 top tiers of the cake were actually fake. The base tier was a rich fruit cake which I was able to bake and decorate weeks in advance. The middle and top tiers were polystyrene cake dummies which I also decorated a few weeks before. The middle tier was covered in white shimmery dragees (cake sprinkles) to match the intricate beading work of my wedding dress, and the top tier was covered in copper leaf to go with the industrial theme and room decorations. We found an amazing personalised cake topper from Etsy of a bridal couple doing a double deadlift, which summed us up perfectly as a couple, as we are both into fitness/CrossFit/weightlifting. Two days before the wedding I baked two different tray bake cakes to serve to our guests, which were much easier (and a lot less stressful!) to transport. One was a chocolate hazelnut cake with a salted caramel mascarpone filling and a chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream, and the other was a lemon sponge filled with a blueberry compote and lemon buttercream and finished with a white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.

Oh my god that slide show was amazing!!!! Thank you so much for putting it together! Tom and I were saying how we felt like we couldn’t remember the day that well as it went by so fast, so it was lovely way to look back at it! I didn’t cry at all on our wedding day but the slideshow definitely brought a few tears to my eyes, and lots of giggles too! We loved the sausage collection shots!!

VICKY & TOM

Favourite part of the day

This is just too hard to answer! It was all amazing and way exceeded my expectations even though I planned everything! I loved the build-up of the day before and seeing the venue come together as I had envisioned it. Getting ready with my sister and cousins was great fun, as well as watching all the guests arrive from the window. Having the photos with our bridal party away from everyone else was fun, and nice to be able to spend time with them before the madness of the rest day! The evening party was just so much fun! I loved dancing the night away and taking silly photos with our photo booth. Everyone got involved with the dancing and the photo booth and really enjoyed themselves.

Anything else you can think of

My cousin Debs gave me away since both my parents passed away from cancer in 2016. Debs has always been an integral part of our family and we are all very close. Debs was a bridesmaid for my mum and dad, so it seemed fitting she gave me away. Her daughter Ella (my second cousin) was also one of my bridesmaids along with sister Liz.

We went for a gin themed table setting as we are both big gin lovers! The bottles we picked for each table were personal to us as they also represented places we’ve been and significant occasions in our life. The bottles also set the colour palette for the rest of wedding styling. I did most of the wedding styling myself, including hand painting the table plan and hand stamping all the name settings (which were pinned into limes to go with the G&T theme!)

The flowers really transformed the venue and were beyond beautiful. Our florist Emma Norton did an amazing job. We had a lot of orange roses as they were my mum’s favourite flower, as well as blue and white blooms, and lots of structural foliage to soften, but at the same time compliment, the industrial architectural setting.

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